Night-Bloom (16 page)

I write now with regard to the five deaths over the past six years in the Hell’s Kitchen area, and to protest the reluctance of the 6th Homicide’ Detectives to rule conclusively that death in each case was intentional, cold-blooded murder, due instead to accidental causes such as masonry falling naturally from buildings onto the street. Now I ask you, is that not ridiculous?

I myself in the past year have interrogated three people, all of whom claim to have seen a possible suspect. Two actually saw the suspect at the scene of the crime. A third saw a man fleeing from the scene of the crime.

True, one was a kid about eleven years old. The second and third, however, strike me as solid. One actually saw the possible suspect on the roof at the actual time of a fatal drop. The other observed a suspect on his fire escape moments after the drop.

How the 6th Homicide guys could ignore this, or wave it away like it didn’t exist just for the sake of “what’s easy” so as to classify this as accidental is beyond …

The old Philco crackled. Phil Kearney, the racing commentator, was going over the field at Aqueduct for that day. Mooney dropped his pencil, reached across to raise the volume and listened.

“… Eighth race … 1 ⅛ miles (1:47), allowances purse, $11,000. Three-year-olds and upward.” Mooney snatched up his pencil again and started to write, this time on the back of a nearby cleaning ticket. “Claiming or starter. Three-year-olds—119 pounds; older, 122 pounds.” The announcer droned on in high nasalities … “Value to winners, $6600; second, $2420; third, $1320; fourth, $660. Mutual Pool $240,079.”

Mooney scribbled hectically, glanced at his watch, then once again snatched up his draft to the commissioner.

… The real reason for my writing is that I believe beyond any reasonable doubt that these five deaths were in no way “accidental.” I have studied the files on all five cases and I am pretty much convinced they are the work of some kind of nut case. Maybe a religious freak of some sort who performs something like a ritual sacrifice once a year or so.

I have noted, and called the attention of my colleagues to this, the royal dunderheads of Manhattan South and the 6th Homicide, all to no avail. The fact that all these fatal drops occur without exception in the spring of the year, three having occurred in April and two in May, appear to make no impression on them.

It is now, as of this writing, May 13th. So far April has been quiet, but I now have the strongest gut feeling that sometime this month our rooftop friend will strike again. I see no sense appealing to my buddies. They are mostly dim bulbs with nothing but suet between their ears. May I talk with you? This is urgent. Believe me, this nut case is going to strike again soon.

I am willing to lay 6 to 2 odds it happens on or around the 16th. The offer is open to you and all comers.

Respectfully,

Francis X. Mooney

“Pardon me. Is this seat taken?”

“Which seat?”

“The seat right here. The one with your coat on it.”

Mooney pretended not to notice the empty seat beside him, despite the fact that it was blatantly occupied by his neatly folded coat. He looked up from his
Racing Form.
The woman towering above him pointed to the coat.

“That is your coat, isn’t it?”

“That coat?” Mooney made a vain effort to disassociate himself from the garment.

“That’s right. That coat right there.”

“Oh, sure. The seat,” Mooney grumbled, then lugged his coat up and laid it down untidily across his knees. “Help yourself.”

“You’re very kind.”

Mooney grumbled something and screwed his gaze to the
Form,
while the lady settled beside him. She was a tall, impressive figure, nearly six feet, not fat, by any means, but amply proportioned. Everything about her, in fact, was of noble scale—legs, torso, head, all crowned with a mane of startling red hair, the shade of which was absolutely natural.

Her features contained the same air of bold extravagance—the large, well-shaped nose, the fine expanse of eyes, a full, well-shaped mouth, all framed within large, well-sculpted bones. Tousled, slightly overpainted, she had the blousy, unbuttoned look of some latter-day Mistress Quickly. Mooney was instantly aware of something heavy and sweet wafting upward from beneath her outer clothing. Seated at last, she plucked a copy of the
Form
out of the depths of a deep, reticulated bag. Propping onto the bridge of her nose, the tortoiseshell lorgnette dangling from a chain round her neck, she proceeded to scan the charts.

Mooney was peeved. It was not merely the awkward inconvenience of having to drape his coat across his lap. More pointedly, it was the strong sense of disapprobation he felt in the presence of women at the track. Particularly betting women. His own mother would never have dreamed of going to the track, no less betting there.

Several times he glanced up from his
Form
to gaze out at the drab monotony of the landscape sliding backward past the window—the cheek-by-jowl congestion of sprawling barrack-residences, row upon row of bogus colonial facades, followed shortly by the little saltbox houses farther out, and then the gaudy blur of billboard posters all along the tracks.

His wandering attention returned to his
Racing Form,
and he did some quick pencil work. Occasionally, out of the corner of his eye, he permitted himself a glimpse at the heavily notated
Form
of the lady seated beside him. Page after page was completely covered with a series of cryptic symbols and hieroglyphics—stars, pyramids, crosses, squares—all set down beside the names of horses, along with a great deal of fractional and algebraic computation.

Smirking at the notion of another “method” player, Mooney noted the choices she had circled for the first four races—Wild Joker, Fife and Drum, Daring Baby, Not Too Well. The latter was a turkey that had been running in $3000 company for most of the year, had recently been dropped to $1500, and in his last outing was trounced at 21 to 1. Mooney had to smother his amusement.

“What do you think?”

“Beg pardon?”

“I said, what do you think?”

Mooney was a little puzzled. “What do I think about what?”

“About my picks so far.”

“How would I know your picks so far?”

“You’ve been studying them for the past quarter of an hour.”

Mooney felt a rush of color to his face. “What the hell would I be studying your picks for?”

“Trying to cop a winner. I saw you clear as day, peeking under your hand there.” Behind the glasses her large gray eyes fixed him with an expression of shrewd amusement.

“Listen … I can assure you …”

“Come on,” she waved him off. “What do you think of Daring Baby in the third, and Not Too Well in the fourth? You can tell me. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind either.” Mooney reddened. “I don’t care what horses you picked in the third and fourth.” He snapped wide the pages of his
Form
and resumed his study.

“But you
were
spying on my
Form.”

“Have it your way.” Mooney spoke very softly, trying to control his mounting irritation. “Listen—I can pick my own horses very well, thank you, and I don’t need any dumb-ass methods … oh …” Even as the words sputtered from his lips, he knew he’d been caught.

The lady beamed triumphantly.

Mooney turned a beet-red. Just as he was about to fling a choice epithet her way, he felt the rattling car decelerate, and one of the conductors came through bawling “Aqueduct.”

After he’d got inside and secured his favorite seat in the first row of the First Tier, there was still time to go down to the stables, have a stroll round the paddocks, view the livestock and chat with the grooms and jockeys—one of the few subcultures of mankind with which Mooney felt a strong affinity.

Still smarting from his encounter with the redheaded lady on the Aqueduct Bullet, he sat down at a field stand and had several bourbon old-fashioneds just to take the edge off of things. Afterward, somewhat mellowed, he ambled onto the field for a look at the track. Knowing the Big A and the track bias like the lines of his own face, in warm dry weather such as they were enjoying that day, Mooney sought horses with early speed and inside post positions.

For the first race, a seven-furlong sprint, Mooney liked a three-year-old filly called Endgame. Her past performances showed she’d been unable to win on the main track for $5000, was tried out in an $8000 turf race and won by a length and a half. At a quick glance down in the paddocks, she looked a bit cheaper to Mooney than the rivals she was meeting today. But the filly she’d defeated March 14, Sagittarius, came back ten days later and won the $13,000 claiming race on the grass against males. Her victory suggested that Endgame was a legitimate $13,000 animal who was undervalued when she ran for an $8000 price tag, but was running at her proper level today. She couldn’t have found an easier spot. All she had to do was beat one chronic loser as well as a generally weak field with animals of limited luster. Mooney wanted her.

Up at the betting windows he waited in line to bet $20 to win and $20 to place on Endgame. While he was collecting his change and stubs his attention was diverted by a commanding voice betting $50 to win and $50 to place on Wild Joker. There was no need for him to turn in order to see who was placing the bet. His neck retracted deeply into his collar. He took his stubs and was about to skulk off when the lady called out to him, “You still looking over my shoulder for a winner?”

Several people on line turned. Mooney made a sour face at her and started down to the First Tier. The bugle fanfare had already sounded at the post when Mooney settled into his seat. Through his binoculars he studied Endgame, taking satisfaction in her superbly favored inside post position of number 2. The filly was quiet and conveyed to him a sense of nicely controlled energy. She was clearly not champing or tossing about, squandering her energy before the race. Her ears were not pinned back as she strode up to the post. Instead, she carried them pricked and upright as if she were trying to hear something. To Mooney that suggested an
alert
creature without any indication of post-time flopsweat. Also her lively tail swish said she was feeling good, and she carried her head straight, not to the side and down, the way a horse in pain does. She wore no bandages on her front legs to suggest there was anything amiss with the tendons. When she put her hooves down, they grabbed the ground firmly, just the way a healthy pair of horse feet should. Mooney was pleased.

Several spots down he was delighted to see that Wild Joker was way off to the outside at position 8, bumping about inside her gate, thrashing and tossing her head and jolting her jockey about in his traces.

In the next moment there was a loud crack, the gates opened and a huge roar went up. At the same time that Mooney watched Endgame lunge out smartly into second position, he was aware of a slight disturbance just off to the side. He glanced up and saw the redheaded lady edging her way through the aisle with a lot of irritated people rising to let her through. Mooney’s heart sank as he realized she was moving toward him, undoubtedly to the single empty seat to his right.

She’d seen him before he’d seen her, and as she approached there was the hint of some immensely satisfying private joke dancing about in her eye. In the next moment she was there, towering above him. “Is that your coat?”

Mooney glowered and once again went through the tiresome business of removing his coat from the empty seat to make room for her.

“I hope this doesn’t inconvenience you,” she said in that vaguely mocking manner as she settled in and watched the faded topcoat return to his lap.

“Not at all,” Mooney growled, not looking at her. “My knees were cold anyway.”

The field had just turned the half and Endgame was holding her own nicely. She was running no more than a neck behind the frontrunner.

“Which is yours?” she asked.

“Endgame,” he muttered, his eyes glued to the binoculars.

“She’ll fade in the stretch. Probably finish fifth,” the lady remarked unemotionally. “Where’s Wild Joker?”

“Seventh. About twelve lengths out.”

“She’ll be fourth at the turn and cross second at the finish.”

Mooney never once looked at her or took his eye from the binoculars. He knew Wild Joker for the next best thing to a sucker horse. She hadn’t finished in the money her last four times out. Her running lines were those of a quitter after anything beyond four furlongs, and her bloodlines were unexceptional. Her best time had been a run on grass.

“Here she comes now,” the lady remarked with infuriating self-assurance. It was about then that Endgame dropped back to third, and from there lapsed into her humiliating fade.

Wild Joker crossed the wire second just as the lady had predicted. She’d come on like a firecracker, gaining four lengths in the stretch. She paid $18.60 to place.

Amid a racket of cheers from the approving stands, the redhead rose, looking very pleased with herself. Mooney smoldered like old burning rags. He knew she had just won over $900 while he was out of pocket some $40 and that was unpardonable.